Grant: Project Grant

In Canada, rates of tuberculosis (TB) are disproportionately high in Inuit Nunangat, the Inuit homeland. Under the leadership of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the national representational organization for Canada's Inuit, efforts are underway to eliminate TB in Inuit Nunangat. Each region of Inuit Nunangat has established a Regional Action Plan for the Elimination of TB. Nunavik is the region of Inuit Nunangat in Quebec, and a key element of its TB Elimination Plan is the deployment of Community Health Workers (CHWs) into the teams providing frontline TB prevention and care services in Nunavik villages. CHWs are community members who work to meet specific health needs of their community without health professional training. The Nunavik Regional Board of Health & Social Services (NRBHSS), the Inuit health authority in Nunavik, is creating a CHW role in its TB services. The goal of our project is to develop and pilot a training program for the formation of CHWs on TB prevention and care activities in Nunavik, that is informed by Nunavimmiut (Inuit of Nunavik) values and knowledge, including culturally-relevant and effective approaches to teaching. This will be achieved by working with Nunavimmiut to co-create a vision of what CHWs working on TB will do in Nunavik, and to co-develop the educational programme. We will work together then to pilot and evaluate the programme in two villages that are highly affected by TB, with the community and stakeholders deciding what to base the evaluation on. Our endeavour is a partnership between the NRBHSS and researchers and clinicians with expertise in community-based participatory-research with Indigenous populations, and in TB.